Typical
by Spawn Guy
Summary: It all started innocently enonugh...


Captain America has strategy, intricately detailed plans that cover different areas of a potential hazard like a legion of army ants and come together to crash down on an enemy from all sides like a tidal wave.

I have well placed fumbling good luck and a good sense of timing.

"Avon calling!"

The skylight glasses shatters around me at the exact same instant Cap and Logan crash through the warehouse doors. Jess glides in behind me, and overhead I can hear the sophisticated purr of Tony's thrusters gliding one of the most advanced fighting machines on the planet into a dive-bombing position to bring down the roof and lay down some cover fire.

The slack jawed hired thugs stare up from their production lines and gantries, some already dropping boxes full of Guardsman gauntlets and running as I land in the middle of the factory floor, taking point on Cap's right as Logan, on his left, snarls at a guy clumsily wielding a semi-automatic.

"Awww man! Oh no! Oh man, someone get the supervillains out here! Oh god!"

This is right around the time most people would panic. Okay, I would. But we're the Avengers. That and we know who we're going up against, who the nine shadows coming through the hanger style doors are.

Beetle (_someone_ in the Beetle armour anyway), Shocker, Rhino, Boomerang and Hydro-Man. The Sinister Syndicate.

Give unto me a break.

To be fair, even after the break out (Still some thirty odd guys out there) it's hard for organised crime to get any real metahuman help these days. They hadn't really picked themselves up after Matt's whole ten second reign as the Kingpin before they suddenly had an influx of supervillains (some of whom are supposed to have been dead for years) looking for ways in or out of the state. Add in the backlog of super guys they've already got trying to prove themselves since all your average purse snatcher has to do is snort some Mutant Growth Hormone and play Thor for a day and you're looking at a powder keg as you try to figure out if you, the all American red blooded New York crime boss, have enough cash to hire a supervillain.

And because it's far too much trouble to have a gang war with everything as unstable as it is right now, every one of these guys still linked to organized crime are liquefying themselves into gangs, scrambling for a crew and anyone who can give them a job. Since Matt sent the Kingpin to Rykers pickings range from Hammer Head to the Owl, and these guys? The Syndicate? They end up doing the rounds in territory run by somebody called Aardwolf (of all the mutants to wind up keeping his powers, huh?). Somewhere along the line they got the ingenious idea to team up with (Wait for it) the Headmen.

Yeah, those Headmen. Arthur Nagan, Chondu the Mystic, Shrunken Bones and Ruby Thursday The Headmen. The people who actually thought it would be a good idea to transplant themselves onto giant gorillas or shiny rubies.

Not that in other circumstances (Anywhere between the whole Onslaught thing and before…everything with the Scarlet Witch) this, or what they're about to do, would really be that much of a problem, but the times-they are a-changin'.

Take this warehouse now. Not particularly unique among, oh, about twenty million other Roxxon warehouse down in Upper New York Bay. The wind still bites away at the ageing steel and timber with salty teeth, the lights still glow orange and amber on Winter nights, and the smell of fish is _everywhere_.

And, not unique among many Roxxon properties, it's up to the neck in organised crime.

Five years back Roxxon would have been a strictly corporate kind of thing, tricking out the odd super criminal with an engineering degree and good aim to play some industrial sabotage game, which is actually how we found these guys out this time. With the influx of metahumans looking for organization, what's left of Hammer Industries suddenly had competition from nearly every New York based corporation with an interest in advanced mercenary development (S.H.I.E.L.D's words, not mine) and a bunch of street level heroes trying to fill in the Avengers shoes naturally looked like a rather large storm cloud set to rain on their shareholders shady little back alley parade: a mini black market of supervillain gear confined to New York and split between a couple of hundred businesses.

So the idea, naturally, was to fine tune the market forces to compensate for us. Us specifically, the new Avengers us. Which led to a kind of monopoly of wannabe supervillains trying to take us down with anti-stick foam (me on patrol over Morningside), EMP smart bombs (Tony responding to a distress call from Stark Enterprises Long Island facility), adamantaium knuckle dusters (Luke walking back to the tower after picking up McDonald's _and_ Burger King for Jessica), flesh eating nano bot viruses (Logan at customs and immigration coming back from a trip to Canada), reflex recording and replicating armoured suits (Cap at a security conference in Washington), and pheromone converting antibodies tricked out with neutralizing and offensive capabilities (Jessica flying home from a night out in Red Hook). Needless to say that was just weird, all that over the next couple of weeks was just annoying.

Tony took out his guy first (Mega-something) and hacked all this straight from his onboard CPU using that fancy new Extremis stuff (although Luke and me figure he just found a little _Roxxon (tm) _logo on his guy's shoe). A little bit of back alley informant shacking and cracking down on known corrupt government contacts and here we are, poised to stop these guys deciding to build the Superadaptoid 2:0 or whatever. Oh, also, if the rumors are true, the Headmen trying to highjack this portion of the operation and start a turf war with the Syndicate to keep it and bringing down all these arms dealers on New York.

"Light 'em up!"

Eloquent guy, whoever's in the Beetle outfit. Maybe we should compare notes with the original playing Mach 3 in the Thunderbolts.

He gets the job done though. Those who can start blasting and it's a testament to how we'll these guys might actually work together that those that can't don't rush ahead and get in the way. Not that that wouldn't help.

Cap raises his shield, taking a blast from the Beetle's gauntlets and not budging as Logan and I duck and roll to avoid a barrage of shockwaves, water and laser fire. Jessica and Tony slash across the air overhead, passing over one another and unleashing a storm of repulsor beams and venom blasts that blow chunks out of the floor and scatter the line of villains. Logan breaks off after slashing one of the legs off Chondu's crab like transport, running along a conveyer belt and doing what we came here to do, slashing at computer terminals and half finished battle suits. Jess backs him up, firing venom blasts into the upper levels to the smell of burning plastic while Tony and the Beetle wrestle in mid air, swerving to avoid the rafters. This leaves Cap to hurl his shield into the crowd, obliterating Hydro Man, and me to bound from villain to villain, ducking under the Rhino's charge and using the impact from Nagan and Ruby to throw myself up into the rafters.

Nagan slams against the far wall, rattling off a large garage style door, and I feel a small pang of concern as I fire a burst of webbing down from the rafters to pin his gorilla arms together. I hear he recently had an operation for chest problem, something about heart compensation.

"Oh hell no, not the Avengers!"

Now just click your heels, make sure the instant web cocoon pinning his arms together isn't too tight, isn't too loose and say…

The garage door buckles and lurches out of the frame, concussing him instantly. Even in the split second aftermath of the bang and against the far off whine and clinking of repulsor blasts and Adamantaium claws the tip tap off Cage's shoes is cool, collected and overwhelming.

"Hell yeah. The Avengers."

"_Luke_!"

I leap from my perch on top of the rafters, bound off the floor, a cling to the remains of the doorframe to bring my upside down head into his line of sight.

"I wanted to say that!"

"You got a problem?"

"Nothing. Hey. Nothing, just…nothing."

"Look man…"

"Nothing, it's just…I wanted to say it."

To be fair this isn't as pathetic as it sounds. I just _need _something to be mad at now because what I'm actually mad at is so ridiculously…petty.

--

It started out innocently enough.

"Damn it MJ, a man does his own laundry!"

I could tell she rolled her eyes, even with the back of her head to me. You develop stuff like that when your married. I could do it with Gwen but that…well, that was a lifetime ago.

And with the universe throwing in a couple of circumstances, it probably would have turned out exactly like this.

"Of course dear."

"I'm not saying I don't appreciate Jarvis, the guys a walking miracle!"

"Yes, honey."

"But I was raised in an American home, and if there's one thing America teaches these days, it's that the man takes responcability!"

"Naturally, sweetie."

"And okay, maybe I haven't done it as much as I should have since we got married…"

"_Totally_, darling."

I ignored that.

"…but when I was single I was never more than five minutes away from a laundry matt!"

"I know, love."

"And…well, it's difficult enough getting used to living with about four other metahumans in the same building without a Brooklyn born English butler going through my underwear! Is it wrong that I just take my own basket…wherever I'm supposed to take it? I don't think so! And maybe it's rude to use my powers to stick the basket to my hand so he can't just politely yank it out of my grip or whatever butlers do, but to then not do any of my stuff for an entire week…! Does he do yours? And I'm down to my last clean costume! And he gives me _the look_! You know the one! Where the eye brows ride up his forehead. It don't just raise the eyebrows, it bulges and the eyebrows wobble all the way up! And the flesh under his eyes get ringed and bunches up and goes around and around and around…"

"Peter."

Why do people always stop talking when other people have their hands up?

"I have a read through in about ten minutes so I'll make this quick."

She stood up, that perfect red streak of hair flashing like a waterfall as it cascaded down her back and around her shoulders. She took my hands, squeezed them together and leant forward, right into my face. You can't ignore a message when it's in the human equivalent of surround sound…

Wifely Digital Pro Logic. Heh.

"You want to do your own laundry, do your own laundry. Just think about how you're going to get it done when you're running off to play with the other Avengers and trying to plan out a full weeks worth of high school classes. And maybe get around to apologising for telling the guy who only wanted to take some of that off your hands to go take a flying leap off the Sentry's watchtower because you're sensitive about other people going through your undies."

"Apologise!?"

"Apologise."

Looking back? From about five hours into the future? I probably should have just apologised.

--

I don't think Luke's speaking to me. It's not just the fact he's fighting the Rhino, it's just a feeling. Me and my big mouth. I've gone and hurt his feelings, I know it. I should just let Boomerang club me right now as he ignores the ten other times this idea didn't work and sneaks up behind me.

I think about it and thrust my fist behind me to a satisfying clunk sound and the clatter of a bodysuit full of boomerangs clatter to the floor.

_Nah_.

I'll just make him a peace offering. Maybe I'll buy him a yoghurt. For an ass kicker, he does love his yoghurt. I roll to the side as Tony crashes into the floor exactly where I was standing, but the Shocker's quick and manages to nail us both, sending us straight through a work station and into a line of shipping containers.

_/That…/ _Tony says, then makes a spitting sound inside the helmet, /_That's annoying.__/_

"Oh yeah."

We both push ourselves out of the dent we made in the side of one of the crates as Shultz's next blast rips it apart, pouring out various blunt and sharp objects, Tony taking the air with something that sounds like _/Isolating__…__/ _

The next repulsor blast slams into Shultz's chest, wobbles, flexes, tenses in a shacking cocoon of vibrating shock waves before catapulting the Shocker clear across the room, tumbling end over end and smacking into Sunken Bones. There's this terrible elastic sound and they come to a halt, unconscious.

"Nice move."

_/Thanks./ _Tony starts to say, then gets to watch as I save his armoured ass, snagging the Beetle with twin weblines, yanking him out of the air and brining him crashing down onto another conveyer belt.

_/I had him on scanners you know./ _

"I know."

_/ Good./ _

"Yeah."

_/Because I did./ _

"I believe you boss."

Jess and Logan tumble from the upper levels, bringing with them the rest of the goon squad and falling weaponry. They land with grace Felicia would scoff at, leaping out of the pile as Luke's last punch sends Rhino crashing down into them. Hydro Man slurps out from under them, reforming with far more manic smugness than a man wearing an armoured suit in _that _shade of blue and tinfoil should.

"What're you gonna do morons, I'm made outta water!"

"But had to remain solid to say that."

Cap swats the back of Hydro Man's neck with the back of his hand. Bench's eyes roll, liquefying, a small trickle of drool dangling from his mouth as he crumples to the floor like wet cardboard.

"Nice work people."

Logan cracks his neck loudly, rolling it and looking around the trashed warehouse.

"Well that was a total waste of half an hour."

Luke glares.

"C'mon…"

"It's Roxxon."

_/He's right. They'll deny using this place since they brought it in 1979 and the records will support it./_

Tony shrugs massive armoured shoulders, and maybe it's my imagination, but I think he's trying to look at Steve without actually looking.

_/But we've set this part of the arms race back by years, gotten practically all of their muscle and the fact we did this in broad daylight will definitely spook them. If we push a little more, then with some organization and maybe calling in the Sentry for some super speed, we could have this entire thing run out of the state in a week./_

Cage looks like he's pretty much given up trying to do anything but stand at this point, making eye contact with Logan and thumbing towards the exit he made out of the garage door's, Nagan's head still pocking out from under them.

"C'mon, let's get a drink. I know a place."

"I know every place." Logan says, but follows him anyway.

"What, you're not gonna change?"

"That a problem?"

"Dunno. Guy in a yellow outfit walks into a bar…"

Logan growls.

"It's in _Soho_ man, forget the spandex. I just can't have the colour yellow anywhere near me.

Not like we were drinking buddies to start off with him being hired by Jameson when we first met to try and bring me in for Gwen's murder, but I kinda get the feeling that actually talking to Wolverine was Luke's way of officially letting me know we aren't speaking right now.

Yeah, well, I've got places to go.

Tony looks up at me as I try taking off through the skylight as everyone else heads out through the hole in the wall to greet the gather news vans.

_/Not staying to actually let these guys know you're officially one of the good guys now?/_

Now I just have to say this with a straight face and this day is almost over. I'm off to a good start. I'm wearing a mask.

"I've got laundry to do."

--

"Sir is leaving?"

I came to a conclusion lately. God hates me. Also, my Spider Sense is God. Jarvis is, as I will be the fifth, Cap the second and the pope the first to admit, a saint. Therefore, my Spider Sense feels perfectly fine not letting me know I'm being snuck up on by a guy with a fluffy bunny rabbit version of Vincent Price's voice and a pair of marshmallow feet.

"Uh, yeah Jarvis, I am. Leaving. Uh, yes."

He raises an eyebrow. Because not guilty people are _always_ unarticulated…

"And when will sir be back?"

Has he not seen the bag? That's stupid, the bag is the size of a Sentinel's thumb. Of course he's seen the bag.

"I don't know. I, uh…I don't…I have a few things to do."

Why must the best laid plans of mice and men especially go awry when one of the mice is a spider? All I wanted to do was swing around Bob's watchtower, angle myself to slip under it's shadow and away from the sun roof, sneak in through Aunt May's room, toss my stuff into Luke's spare gym bag, and sneak back out.

Of course he'd be in Aunt May's room. And not a duster in sight.

He raises the other eyebrow, giving me vertigo and then lowers both into that melting clay that is the transition from the Avenger's dad, the face that told a thunder god to put the seat down, to the polite smiling face that simply adorable English gentleman who made the cover of _Better House And Gardens _three years running.

"Very good, sir. Shall I inform Mrs Parker?"

Is he buying it? I can't tell if he's buying it. Please let him buy it…

"Uh…which?"

"Either, Sir."

"Uh…yeah. Yeah, guess I'd better. _You__'__d_ better, I mean. You. Yes."

"Very good, Sir."

Of course he brought it! I'm the Goddamn Spider-Man! He is a man who thinks that what the world really needs is dust free shelving and a nice cup of tea.

"Yes. Yes, it is very good Jarvis. See you later."

"Toodle pip, Sir."

And, with as much dignity as a man can have I leap off the sill, fall ten stories, fire a webline and get the hell out of there.

--

I miss Chelsea. I really do. I shouldn't, but I do. Maybe I should swing by the old apartment and see if Ms Muggins is still dusting those old floors…

Nah, what the hell would I say? _Hi, I got nostalgic because I__'__m living in a penthouse owned by a billionaire with a superhero__'__s headquarters on top with a former supermodel turned Broadway actress wife. Mind if I come in and see if that fungus is still living under the sofa?_

Still, some of the best things in my life happened here, in that rat hole apartment. Graduating college, becoming my own person away from Harry and Aunt May, settling things with the Hobgoblin, finally deciding to ask Mary Jane the question…

And then along came Venom…

Still, memories are at the same time not really and kinda actually the reason I'm down here. It's the one place on Earth where I _know_ there's a laundry matt. I swing low, clasping the bag's right shoulder strap despite the fact I tied it tight across my chest twice and wave at two kids in the back of a passing car as I enter free fall from my last swing and the ground rushes up to meet me. How much would it ruin this moment if I just let this thing fall?

I hoist myself up and out of gravity's reach by latching onto a streetlight and crouching there to try and get my bearings. I bound across a couple of blocks of low roofed apartment buildings, landing on another streetlight and there it is.

Kowalski dry cleaning Ltd. Beautiful isn't it? Oh to you it may be a single floored white building with a red and yellow sign between two apartment buildings backing out onto a parking lot, but to me…it's a single floored white building with a red and yellow sign between two apartment buildings backing out onto a parking lot…

Yeah. Anyway it's _there_ and all I have to do is find a place to change into my street clothes, cross the street and then _Ha ha! _MJ. My chosen street clothes are on top of the pile and I have a hundred bucks worth of change for the machines, plus some fancy German detergent one of MJ's costume designer friends recommended, so it _must_ be good…

Spider Sense.

What? Really? Here?

I keep out of sight as I double back across the roof until I come to the parking lot, bounding up into a tree and slowing the street noises around me, delving into the Sense. Even smell vanishes as I lock solely onto the building. I swear, if this is another damn Masochist Marauders International convention…

You don't want to know.

Yep, definitely coming from inside the building, just hazy and…clingy in a way I was kind of hoping I wouldn't recognise. My fingers start itching the way they always do whenever it's him, but the worse part is some of my arm hair has started sticking up, and that's just an ungodly sensation in a giant spider suit. I check my wrist under the glove; my digital watch has stopped.

I tense my legs for a big jump to stay away from the windows, rolling to disperse the impact as I land so I don't make it sound like a full grown spider mutant just landed on the roof, darting across to the front of the store and bending almost double (I can't because of the bag) to get a look in through the front windows.

It's hard to make out, but a group of people are definitely huddled together on the floor, hands over their heads, clothes spilling from baskets across the floor. Just a little more and…yeah… there he is at the front desk, shouting at the skinny guy behind the counter just in front of the machines. Dosen't have his mask on, and he's wearing some kind of giant leather overcoat, but it _is_ him, the green and yellow costume sleeve is poking out…

Max Dillon.

Electro!

What the _hell_ is Electro doing in a laundry matt? What the hell is he doing in Chelsea, for God's sake, he's not even supposed to be in New York! I thought he was still in lock up.

He's looked…better.

Seriously, is he sick or something? He keeps stopping to rub his arm across his nose and his eyes are watery. He turns for a split second and sneezes, sparks erupting from both nostrils. Everyone in the room jumps and I catch a glimpse of a face with the red pinkish colour of a fever. The patrons haircuts are standing on end, meaning Electro's magnetic aura is playing up, letting off static cling, something he usually dosen't let happen . He's so sensitive about it…

Ah.

Apparently in that split second he caught a glimpse of me too. My Spider Sense multiplies the air around me into a hair thin series of sensory needles, turning the world into snap shots, my reflexes into split second shutter snaps. Surprise melts out of Electro's face, I push off the roof as the static increases, an enraged electro raises his too large hands with his too long yellow fingers, I finish rotating to land facing him, a miniature sun blossoms across his palm, everybody ducks…

I throw an arm up as the front of the place explodes, throwing glass, masonry and remains of the revolving door out into the street. Dillon registers as a crackling chemical buzz in the front of my skull before he appears, staggering through the smoke.

"Spuder-Muhn!"

God, he really does sound awful.

"God invented instant messaging for a reason, 'Tro…"

He thrusts out a finger accusingly. A tiny spark falls out and manages to ignite a cigarette bud rolling along the sidewalk before vanishing. It's actually kinda sad.

"You Avenger assholes made me luk like a pansy, big guns wone touch me cause they thingk yer after me, my girlfren won't see me, an' I got the frigging _flu_ hiding out in Alaska! Just gonna zap you an' go home…"

Alaska? He thought hiding in Alaska was a good idea? Actually, I can kinda see it; Dillon sails in or flies in, whatever, and finds it's going to be harder to get a job than he'd think. Needing to keep a low profile he rents out an apartment or something and then starts setting up plans for his next job. Only it can't be a bank or anything because he feels awful and the Fantastic Four will come kick his ass anyway. Still…

"And laundry mats having those big old fashioned vaults full of gold bars and all…"

"Don' laugh at me, man!"

I'm not fast enough to dodge the blast and it sends me bouncing off the roof of a car and slamming the small of my back into a fire hydrant. His booted feet marching across the street wobble into view and I realise under the coat he's wearing that weirdass new costume from back during Norman's last stupid crazy thing. I stagger to my feet, trying to get a feel of the street around me; terrified people peek over the shattered glass of the laundry mat, and if he's coming towards me at least that gets him away from the building. Cars have stopped all around me, or maybe they're parked, this isn't the kind of neighbourhood used to having a metahuman show down. At least if he's this out of it he won't to be able to get sophisticated, even after he powered down off that insane recharge he still nearly killed me that last time last year.

"Machine wudn't work. Guy tryda rip me off an' I just…"

He stops and sneezes another stream of sparks, groaning.

"Jez wanad some cash…God, you disgusting liddle bug!"

I lunge over a bolt of pure high voltage that blows out the windows of an electronics store behind me (Closed, thank God). I figure it's time to go on the offensive, only we could afford more time in defensive since my Spider Sense tells me tackling him now will get me Kentucky fried, so I snag a paper rack behind him and yank it out of the pavement, tripping him up and onto his front. I drop the line, backing up a little more. If he's unintentionally generating static I don't want to see what happens if he tries for something bigger.

"Hard up for cash, huh? I hear ya man, times are hard all over. Cost of living rising all the time and all…"

"Shoulduh staed outta this! ! !"

Three exclamation marks. I may be in trouble.

I zigzag my way through a dancing storm of power that tares apart the asphalt and brick around me, latching onto a fire escape and ricocheting from there to the corner of a brownstone on my left. This is classic Electro stuff, something I figured out back around 1987, the thirteenth time I fought him robbing the New York Mint (Y'know, back when you actually got real money in banks) and actually started to pay attention to what these psychos were doing while they were trying to kill me, and realised he basically stood in the same space, revolving to follow me. This stuff? It makes him dizzy.

"Son of a…!"

He sneezes sparks again, pulling down his mask with one hand and firing off a constant stream of lightning with the other. I summersault over it, tugging firmly on the strap so the bag dosen't dip into it and get fried, and land back on the fire escape, crouching on the railings.

"Getting predictable Max. The Bugle could use stock footage for the first half hour of this thing."

"Oh shuh _up_!"

He snorts loudly, then makes a wincing exhaling noise as he brings both hands up, unleashing a storm of voltage dead on at the entire side of the building. Because it's not smart to stand on something made of metal while fighting someone like Electro, I was already in the air before he'd finished talking.

"Look man, you're sick. Let's just sit down and get something to drink and…"

"Du hell wi' yuh!"

I lean backwards far enough to make a limbo dancer wince (Funny story, my existence, and hence my acrobatics, combined with bunch of morons with web cams, no health insurance and low rent Spider-Man costumes have led to a legislation to permanently ban limbo contests in the entire state of Ohio), my nose full of the stench of ozone and the front of my costume tingling near hot enough to be burning.

He comes charging at me, ditching the coat, pulling back a fist blazing with power. I don't want a face full of voltage so I lean back, swinging the bag around to hit him in the stomach. He hunches over, spraying something out of his surprised mouth that combusts in a crackle of light and angry orange sparks. The end of the bag is smoking as I pull it back and roll across the asphalt to avoid whatever the hell he just coughed up. I should really ditch this thing, Electro was difficult enough to predict before he got sick and this things starting to slow me down. I think the strap may be coming loose.

I hop back up onto the fire escape to avoid the next series of blasts, leaping into the air. I manage to get a webline out and half way across the street before my world bursts into pain as a stray bolt hits me in the leg. I manage to hold onto the line as I swing back, dangling there like the world's first cooked pendulum, breathing hard as my legs go numb. Electro bursts off the ground in an explosion of lightning, roaring after me and catching me in the side, ripping a scar right across my side. I tumble out of the air, ramming into the roof, the bag bouncing my spine up and down, sending me rolling across the roof and crashing down into the parking lot.

Electro hovers there a couple of feet above me, aura screaming.

"Havin' fun freak!? Thought ib'd be an deasy fight, huh!?"

"No, if I'd brought Cage along, _then_ I'd think it'd be an easy fight."

Mistake.

A million car stereos all turn on at once. Light sizzles in the split seconds across garbage cans and spare change. Spider Sense. Electro makes a Magneto like gesture, and everything explodes.

The impact of every car around me suddenly blowing up bowls me over and sends me crashing across the roof and smacking off the ionised metal of the security fence, which actually gets rid of this crick in my back from carry the bag I didn't realise I had but then erupts into a series of burning bruisers all he way down my spine. I pull myself up, reeking of cooked meat which freaks me out, then stare up as the intense light overhead flickers out. Electro bobs and weaves towards me in a drunk bumblebee flight pattern, arms swaying like a puppet set free from it's strings. Guess generating that much juice sucked whatever was keeping him going right out of him…

He tumbles to my right, the electric trails of his flight path sparking out as his boots scrape the ground, his knees bouncing him into a sprawling roll until he skids to a spread eagled stop a few meters away from me, breathing heavily. I hesitantly sidle over to lean over him, trying to figure out of it's him or my Spider Sense that's sizzling.

"Max?"

"FUUUHHH!"

He erupts out of the slump, charging at me with sparks screaming from both nostrils.

I punch him right in the face, then jab him in the shoulder to send him swinging away.

He comes back with a clumsy roundhouse punch that's not even carrying a charge and I punch him in the sternum. He erupts into a series of hacking coughs, staggers back, and slumps against the fence looking utterly miserable.

"Max?"

"Mm-mug-ugh-h-huh…?"

"Go to sleep."

He collapses.

I breathe out and back in again for a few seconds, trying to figure out how much time that entire thing took. Can't be more than twenty minutes…

The bag.

Where's the bag?

Oh God, I lost the bag…

I whirl around, trying to take stock of the entire thing: smoke, glass, fire, twisted metal…

Wait…there, through the fence…

Yes…

In the middle of the road, there, without a scratch, the right side up…

Yes. Yes! _Yes!_

A car comes around the corner and runs straight over the bag before turning the next corner and driving away.

I just stay there for a minute, watching my clothes and change roll across the road, dancing in the wind, then look down at Electro, sleeping like a baby and on the way to Rykers with all the orange jumpsuits you could ask for.

_Typical._

--

Jessica looks at me, her mask slipped down as her red and yellow jump suited hourglass body passes me in the corridor, and who could blame her. I caught sight of exactly how my reflection looked as I swung past a skyscraper I'm convinced had it's windows just newly cleaned and all shiny just to spite me. Man-Thing _wishes _he had this much stuff clinging to him.

"Don't."

She dosen't. I don't know what the hell she'd do, but she dosen't.

I trudge past the living room, filling the living quarters of the tower with the smell of a barbecue in a garbage dump, passing the utility rooms on the way to the stair case where I'll have to climb two floors, march even further along more corridor and explain how I lost practically every item of clothing I own to my wife. Possibly Aunt May too, may as well make this crappy as possible. It's not all bad though. Tony can probably loan me back all that rainy day change I'd scrounged out of the sofa and hey, at least I've got the greasy remains of the few clothes I managed to get back wrapped in a web sack and held under my arm. Possibly sticking to the smoky cocoon with a gash clean across the left hand side that almost completely obliterates the seam that is my costume.

It probably stinks too, I spent a lot of time swinging around trying to scrounge together enough clothes before the emergency teams arrived and then I had to break up a car jacking in the meat packing district, something I had virtually no energy for. As I result, 'm all sweaty. I then spent the rest of the day sitting on a ledge overlooking, ironically enough, the Daily Bugle. I could probably have haggled a fortune out of JJ for the pictures of this. If I still had a camera. All in all, I wasted three hours crossing the city, another two sitting there feeling sorry for myself, and I frankly smell like it.

One of the doors is open. Jarvis looks up curiously as I trudge past, pausing in his gentle humming.

"Hello Mr Parker."

"Hello Jarvis."

I trudge past, the next few verses of _Heart And Soul _following me.

I'm back in the doorway five seconds later. I don't think he heard me come back, leant humming over that basin with a scrubbing brush, several open bottles, and about ten washing machines humming around him.

I cough.

"Jarvis?"

He looks over his shoulder at me, half at my disposal.

"Yes, Sir?"

"What exactly are you doing?"

He turns fully, bringing up the elongated and slumped shape of my shirt, the one I was going to wear today.

"Attending to this rather difficult stain, Sir. Mister Logan brought them in after heading out to attend to business in what I believe is referred to as District M , Sir."

Logan? In Chelsea? Dosen't that idea just scare the hell out of you?

" You're cleaning them? And…your getting the stains _out_?"

He nods, smiling.

"Yes, Sir. If Sir would care to remove that costume, I believe I could actually have a go at that if that would be reasonable."

My brain still hasn't fully translated the last two seconds.

"Actually out?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Removing them

"Yes, Sir."

"Totally?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Utterly?"

"Yes, Sir."

"You're _cleaning_ them?"

The smile has gone away.

"Yes, Sir."

"Oh."

I stand there for a while, completely dumb struck. I was tired before, and maybe Dillon gave me that cold, but I suddenly want very much to go to sleep. I remember the package under my arm, and peel it away from there with a sound like the Hulk stepping on a tube of toothpaste.

"Uh, if I want I could take care of…"

I didn't even feel it leave my hand.

"Not at all, Sir."

"Yeah…"

Not sure what else to do, I take one of the two chairs propped alongside the counter, watching him work for a while.

"Jarvis…I may owe you an apology. Actually I do. It's just…"

He looks at me, waiting for me to find the words.

"There've been…a lot of changes lately. Loosing Aunt May's house…coming here…laundry is something _I_ do, it's never thought it'd just come down to me sitting back and letting someone else work hard for my stuff. If I don't do I, I just…wouldn't be me."

"Ah. You are, as ever Sir, a man of duty."

"Guess you can relate, huh?"

He goes back to work.

"I remember when Captain America returned from what would be the first of many battles in the 20th century against Baron Zemo."

So an ordinary butler, taking care of a playboy's mansion the playboy never really uses suddenly goes from not only being on part time retainer to a group of the world's most powerful metahumans (And Ant Man and the Wasp) to being the guy who scrubs the legend of World War 11's undies. Or chain mail…

"I wish I could say that was the first time I had ever cleaned blood out of anything, but that wouldn't be true."

I stare at his back for a while, but he dosen't elaborate, just returning to a world made out of that simple back and forth motion, eating away at whatever is clinging to that particular shirt. I'm not sure exactly why he told me that, but it feels…important. Men of duty…

"It just feels…sometimes I think it's like I've never done enough. Like I'll never do enough."

"With all due respect, Sir?"

I look up.

"Men of duty often do."

We look at each other across that suddenly immense but far too small room, the rumbling of washing machines omnipresent yet galaxies away, and I feel…understanding. Kind of. Jarvis is here, the weight dosen't have to be mine all the time now. Not _all_ the time. The little things can be extraordinary, just once in a while. I've known that all along, the second I slipped that ring on MJ's finger. Being Spider-Man didn't have to be just my problem anymore, didn't _have _to be a problem. And now…sometimes being Peter Parker dosen't either.

Cage steps out of the elevator and rounds the corner.

"Hey Jarvis."

"Afternoon, Sir."

"You seen Peter lately?"

"Not _recently_, Sir."

"If you do?"

Jarvis cocks an attentive ear.

"I wanna know what the hell happened to my bag and why it was laying in the middle of Chelsea."

"Will do sir."

Luke leaves and I don't breathe out again until I hear the elevator ding, the vibration running through my fingers clutching the ceiling. I point a finger at Jarvis, looking at him upside down.

"You never saw me."

"Very good, Sir."

"Yeah. And where do you keep the yoghurt?"


End file.
